The Village of South Jacksonville returned to it own water service on September 17th after more than a year of being supplied water by the City of Jacksonville.
Village Public Utility Superintendent Brian English gave a report to the village board of trustees on September 19th in written communication that the return to service at Oxville had been completed with a few minor things with the water softener plant that would be completed by the end of the month. Village President Dick Samples says that no announcement was made to the public to see if there would be any complaints on the quality: “Primarily, I wanted to wait to see if anyone would notice the difference, and we haven’t had one complaint. Now, when the word gets out, we will probably have 500. So far, we’ve had no problems at all with the water. It’s been completely renovated. It’s been cleaned up at the plant. Everything is up to snuff, except the water softener, and it’s in the process of being fixed.”
The work for the city utilities department now shifts towards lead service line surveillance and replacement. Samples says that potholing done by Killian’s throughout the village should be started: “There will be spot checks around the village to see if there are lead lines or galvanized lines, or what’s running from the stop box into a house.”
After surveillance is complete and submitted to the Illinois EPA, the village will then need to secure funding for any replacement of those lead service lines that are located. English has previously told the board of trustees he believes that there are several dozen locations in the older portion of the village that likely has lead lines that will need replaced.